Data previously collected for elementary classrooms in a large urban district, showing a positive relationship between teacher approval, or measured by a semantic differential, and pupil gains in reading achievement, should be further analyzed to clarify the causal basis of this relationship. Specifically, three competing hypotheses would imply different relationships among teacher judgment, pupils' perceptions of the teacher's judgments, and other pupil attitudes. (1) The achievement gain may be mediated by interpersonal perception; only those pupils who perceive a favorable judgment may respond to it. (2) The positive effects of teacher approval may be specific to pupils with favorable attitudes regarding control of reinforcement or the system fairness of the school environment. (3) Favorable pupil attitudes may cause both teacher approval and achievement gains. After refinement of the data to correct problems discovered in preliminary analysis, these hypotheses would be tested with three separate multiple regression analyses; for which each hypothesis implies specific nonzero coefficients for associated path diagrams.